Dear Harry
by Kaymanay
Summary: It's Harry's twenty first birthday, and he receives a most unexpected visitor, with a very special gift.


**A/N:** Ok, so this little Gem came to me about two weeks ago, and I've been writing it in short bursts, whenever inspiration hits, and managed to finish it last night. It was a hard story to write, much harder than I thought it would be; emotionally and creatively. But, alas, here it is, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it.

**Dear Harry.**

Harry Potter awoke on the morning of his birthday with a very peculiar feeling. It was the same peculiar feeling he had woken up with on every birthday since his eighteenth. Harry Potter was excited. Today was his birthday, and not just any birthday, it was a very important birthday, by any standard. Muggle and Wizarding alike. Today, Harry Potter would be turning twenty one.

There was nothing out of the ordinary that he should be excited about his birthday, much less that it was his twenty first birthday. But, Harry Potter was not ordinary when it came to birthdays. In fact, there was a lot about Harry Potter that was not ordinary, the most notably being that he was a Wizard, and even by Wizarding standards he was considerably un-ordinary, because shortly before his eighteenth birthday, Harry had defeated the most evil Wizard of the Century: Lord Voldemort. A very powerful, very horribly Wizard who had wreaked havoc on the Wizarding world for nearly thirty years, and through two very nasty wars.

But neither the fact that Harry was a very special Wizard, nor the evil Lord Voldemort, were the reason for the feeling of peculiarity that accompanied Harry's excitement on his birthday. Another very un-ordinary thing about him was the face that, before his eighteenth, Harry had never really felt excited about, or particularly looked forward to, his birthdays. Harry had never even had a birthday cake before his eleventh birthday, due mostly to the fact that most years Harry's birthday had been forgotten. You see, Harry, who had been orphaned the night that Lord Voldemort had killed his parents, was sent to live with his Mother's sister and her new husband, both of whom were as muggle as muggles could be. They had a son, not much older than Harry himself, who was spoilt and pampered and very much looked forward to his birthdays, which every year had brought him a greater number of extravagant gifts than the previous. Harry, however, had not received so much as a "Happy Birthday" from his Aunt and Uncle, who seemed to regard his existence as about as desirable as that of a Snail's. They had always known, where Harry did not, that he was a Wizard, and in their plight to be ordinary, detested anything that was not. And Harry Potter, we have established, was not ordinary.

But there were no thoughts of horrible Aunts and forgotten birthdays as Harry blinked himself blearily into the world of the awake. There was only the explosion of excitement in his stomach, and a pleasant tingle in his toes and fingers, as he grinned happily at the white painted ceiling above him. Yes, Harry Potter was excited to be turning twenty one today, and that made him very happy.

Harry rose, and stretched languidly, scratching his head, further messing up his already very messy black hair. He carelessly stuffed his feet into his blue slippers, and shuffled cheerily out of the room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, which was empty, apart from what appeared to be a small peck of Owls. Harry was not bothered by the absence of his friends; he knew they would have been there if they could, but they could not get the day off from work. It was not their birthday, after all, it was his.

The Owls, which had begun to screech loudly at the sight of the dishevelled young man, waited until he had approached the large wooden table in the centre of the room, before they launched off from wherever they had taken perch and converged on said table, hooting shrilly and pecking each other viciously in an attempt to deliver their parcel first. Harry, still grinning in a rather silly way, reached forward and began to untie the packages and parchment attached to the owls. Soon, the last of the owls had soared out of the back door, which Harry had opened with his Wand, leaving a very happy Harry with a table full of cards and presents. He decided to leave the presents for now, and shuffled over to the kettle and began to full it.

Harry had just set the kettle to boil, when a sharp series of raps startled him. With a curious look towards the front door – no one ever used it – he left the boiling kettle, pocketed his wand in his pyjama bottoms, and shuffled towards the front of the house. He couldn't seem to decide if he was more excited or curious. Casting a quick look in the mirror hanging on the wall of the small foyer to check everything was in place, he ran a self-conscious hand over his extremely messy hair in a futile attempt to flatten it, and reached forward to open the door.

The person standing on the other side was not someone he had expected to ever see again. Wispy blonde hair was hidden beneath a tangerine orange head-scarf, which tied beneath the chin of a long, hoarse-like face, mostly obscured by extremely large, black sunglasses, and sat atop an equally long neck. Their head swivelled from side-to-side nervously, as if worried someone might recognise them. Harry would have recognised them anywhere.

"Aunt Petunia," he said in a choked, strangled sort of voice. The head ceased it's swivelling immediately, and turned stiffly up to face Harry, as if only just noticing that he had opened the door. They stared at each other for a moment, each, apparently, as shocked as the other, before the woman's mouth thinned out, and she flapped her arms exaggeratedly.

"Well, don't just stand there boy, let me in before someone sees me," she snapped at him, and despite the less than fond, or complete lack of, greeting, Harry felt the warmth of familiarity run over him. She may not have been his favourite person in the world, nor he hers, but she was still his family and she had raised him.

Shocked into action, Harry stepped back automatically, and held the door open wider, allowing Aunt Petunia's bony frame to dart inside, and into the brightly lit foyer. He shut the door quietly, still on automatic and turned to face the older woman, who had removed the lurid head-scarf and comically large sunglasses and was now running a taming hand nervously over her hair.

"Err- can I take your jacket?" Harry asked politely, looking pointedly at the cloak rack beside her. She pulled the white summer jacket tighter around herself and shook her head.

"No, thank you," she said sharply. "I shan't be staying long." Harry nodded slowly, but said nothing and motioned down the hallway into the kitchen. They made the short journey in complete silence, the sound of her heels softy thumping the carpeted floor strangely magnified. He didn't look back at her as he marched straight into the kitchen and over to the kettle where he added a second cup next to his own.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked as he finally turned to face her. "The kettle's just boiled." An uncomfortably feeling had begun filling him now that the shock had worn off, but he couldn't help the wave of amusement that stole over him as he caught sight of the horrified look stretched across her face. Even without the cauldrons and potions ingredients strewn haphazardly around the room, and the small wireless radio in the corner proclaiming it was "the Morning Brew, with the Weird Sisters up next," he doubted she would have been comfortable in the care-worn and slightly messy room. And, he imagined, the fact that the owls appeared to have left half their feathers behind didn't help either.

He cleared his throat, trying to catch her attention as he slowly withdrew his wand from his pocket, attempting to give her some warning of what he was about to do. Her eyes still widened in obvious terror as she caught sight of it. She visibly flinched when he gave the wand a sharp flick, and took a few terrified steps backwards when the feathers disappeared, the letters and parcels formed themselves into neat piles, and the cauldrons stacked themselves tidily by the back door. He felt a stab of annoyance when she turned accusing eyes on him, but quickly forced it away. It was his birthday, he wasn't going to get angry.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked again, with forced politeness. "The kettle's just boiled." She looked suspiciously from him to the kettle, and seemed to consider for a moment before nodding stiffly. He quickly made two cups of tea, refraining from using any more magic, and turned back to find her still hovering around the door. He motioned to the table in front of them, and she took a few cautious steps towards it before gingerly setting herself in one of the miss-matched chairs surrounding it, eyeing the neatly stacked parcels on the table, as if worried they might suddenly fly at her.

Harry placed a steaming mug of tea in front of her, and settled himself in another of the chairs. She did not touch the mug, and sat with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring at the parcels intently. Harry averted his gaze to the sturdy table on which his elbows were resting, mug cradled in his hands, and staring absently at a black scorch mark on the wooden surface. He was sure it had been Ron who had caused it, but he couldn't remember how ... They sat like this for a few very long, very uncomfortable minutes before Aunt Petunia finally spoke.

"We never really gave you many birthday presents, did we," she said quietly, the words obviously not meant as a question. "Your Uncle and I, I mean," she clarified. Harry shrugged and averted his eyes again.

_You never really gave me any birthday presents,_ but Harry did not voice this thought for fear of a confrontation, and continued his table staring. "Yes well, you know, with Dudley and such ..." she trailed off, clearing her throat uncomfortably, but Harry still did not look up. It had been a very poor excuse. He heard the distinct rustle of her movement, the hurried shifting of objects, and looked up in time to watch her pull something out of her bag and place it on the table in front of them. It was two things. An envelope, and a small, carefully wrapped box. Harry blinked.

The small box had been wrapped neatly in plain brown paper, which was dry and wrinkled with age, and tied with equally aged, yellowing sting. The envelope, too, looked dry and wrinkled and had taken on a grey tint that only came with sitting somewhere for a long time, having never been touched. The ink had faded, but he could still make out his name on it, the familiar curve of the 'H', the 'Y' so like his own. His heart skipped a beat, eyes flying to his Aunt who was watching him apprehensively. She swallowed thickly.

"They're not from us," she told him, but Harry already knew this. "I – I promised your Mother before she died that I would deliver this to you on your twenty first birthday, if she didn't come back for them," she explained. Harry made no indication that he was listening, and continued to stare blankly at the objects on the table. His heart was beating very fast in his chest, and his mouth had gone very dry, like he needed a drink, despite the fact he had just taken a sip of the tea still cradled in his hands. The letter was from his Mother. From his parents? And, the box, what was in the box?

Aunt Petunia had picked up her mug, and was sipping delicately from it, eyes averted again. Harry was grateful for this small act of privacy. He was excited, very excited. There was a letter for him, Written by his Mother, and possibly his Father. He wanted nothing more than to snatch it up and hungrily feast his eyes on the words, read it and re-read it, until he knew every word, every full stop by heart. Until every smudge of the ink was ingrained on his memory. But his hands remained firmly wrapped around his mug. The letter suddenly made his Mother more real that she had ever been before; a person – Lily Potter – who had walked, talked and breathed. A person who had written letters and wrapped gifts. A person who had died and been mourned for.

Harry had already mourned for the loss of his parents; lamented their absence, but they had been laid to rest shortly after Voldemorts defeat. The letter sat before him, the neatly wrapped box, were dangerously on the verge of re-opening closed wounds.

Aunt Petunia had given up the pretence of offering him some privacy, and was now casting him uneasy looks out the corner of her eye, taking hurried, nervous sips of her tea. Releasing a sigh, Harry placed his mug down on the table witch a soft click and reached towards the envelope. His fingers stilled, momentarily, above it, his mind waging a vicious war against itself. Then his fingers dropped down on to the aged paper and pulled it towards him. He held it in his hands for a moment, weighing it, running his fingers over the letters on the front, following their indents. His heart was beating dangerously fast, and his hands trembled alarmingly as he flipped the envelope over, and with a quick bend of the envelope, snapped the circular seal. He clumsily withdrew the parchment within, and with a deep breath, began to read.

_Dear Harry,_

_First and foremost must come what is expected of me: a declaration. A declaration which is made no less true or heartfelt by the expectation of it. Words from which I take joy in declaring, and it is something you must never doubt; you, and your Father, are the reason I breathe. I love you, Harry, more than you will ever possibly know._

_Second must come the apology. If you are reading this letter, then the chances are that I am, most probably, no longer with you. And if that is the case, the I am truly sorry, my love, that I had to leave you, and I hope that life has been kind to you. It has never been my intention to leave you, and had there been any other way, we would have found it. Know also, that I have not died in vain, because some things in this world are worth dying for, and that is what I am writing this letter to explain._

_War is an ugly thing, and something I pray you will never have to live through. War destroys more than just the material, and what can be seen. War does more than just kill, it destroys lives and people. It will break your heart, hurt the soul, and tear apart the world as you know it, War breeds fear, and hatred, and misery and betrayal. And that is what I am fighting against, Harry, what we are all fighting against: Me, your Father, Sirius, Peter, Remus, Dumbledore, the Order. We are fighting for a world in which to raise you, all of our children, where you won't be surrounded by hatred, pain, death and destruction. A world where prejudice and bigotry are punished and not encouraged, a world where you can be proud, and valued for your abilities and your person, and not your parentage._

_I am a muggle-born, Harry, and for this reason, amidst a long list, I am hunted by Voldemort. Your Father is persecuted for marrying me; he is viewed as having shamed his pureblood ancestry. I fight so that the world you will grow up in, the words muggle-born and pureblood will mean nothing, and that you will be judged for nothing more than who you are. That is something I beg of you, Harry, that you will always value a person for who they are, and nothing else. But mostly, my precious child, I fight for you, because you deserve more than this world has to offer._

_However, in fighting back, we have placed ourselves, and unintentionally you, in very grave danger. Dumbledore seems to think it necessary that we go into further protected hiding. Something your Father and I are loathe to do, but for your sake we will. It is only now, as we prepare to go under the protection of the Fidelius Charm, as we say goodbye to everyone we love, unsure of when we will see any of them again, that I am truly beginning to understand the danger that we face. I realise now that not all of us will make it through this war alive, and already we have lost too many. I understand that by going into hiding, we are protecting more than just ourselves. It was all done for you, my love. Everything was done for you._

_I will be leaving this letter with your Aunt Petunia, with directions that it be delivered to you on your twenty first birthday, if I am not there to tell you everything myself. I pray to every God in existence that it is I who has delivered this to your hands, and that I have been a worthy Mother as befits my little prince. But I do not, if it is my sister who delivers this to you, then know this, Harry: You are more precious to me than anything in this world. I am blessed that you are my son. I think I may have loved you forever, because I cannot possibly conceive of how I was ever able to love before you were born. You are my world. If there is only one thing you will ever be sure of in your life, let it be this: I am you Mother, and I love you._

_Your adoring Mother,_

_Lily_

_xxx_

_P.S Happy birthday, Harry. May all your dreams come true._

Harry read the letter a further three times before he tore his eyes away from the familiar cursive to settle his gaze on his nervous looking Aunt. Her wide eyes flew back and forth between Harry and the letter. He wasn't sure how he felt. He wasn't sure _what_ he felt, or what he should feel. Emotions seemed to blow through him like a hurricane, too violent, too relentless to allow him to grab hold of one and settle on it. He felt excited, and happy, and warm, and dizzy. He felt sad, and drained, and cold and nauseous. He felt unsure, and he felt loss. Any, yet, he felt finality, as if her words had been rendered in stone, and not lovingly scripted in ink. This was his Mother's goodbye to him.

His Mother had written this letter to him. His Mother.

His Mother's warm hand had held the parchment, had held the quill that had traced ink into these letters before him. His Mother Lily, with her red hair and green eyes so like his own, had sat once and written to him about her fears, and her hopes for the future. She had wanted him to understand why she had died, and why it had not been in vain. And some part of Harry distantly understood. Yet this letter, her words, her love for him almost materialised, made her so much more real, more alive that he had ever been able to conceive of. It made his grief more real, more excusable. This was something he knew, he could remember, that he could grieve for. And yet, whilst certainly there, lurking just out of sight, making its presence known, it was not grief that Harry was feeling. Harry felt peaceful, suddenly. As if the hurricane inside him had stopped as suddenly as it had started. He blinked quickly, clearing his eyes of the moisture he hadn't realised had built up. A single tear slid down his flushed cheek; the last tear her would ever shed for his Mother. And he let it run its course over his skin and onto the faded parchment in his hands, to mingle where he imagined his Mother's own tears had been shed.

When he finally settled his emerald gaze back on his Aunt it was to find her expression a mixture of alarm, worry and quite obvious curiosity. Without thinking, Harry held the parchment out to his Aunt with a steady hand. The alarm in the older woman's face seemed to increase as her eyes fell on the letter and she realised what he was doing. She stared at it for a long moment, her face a steady flow of emotions before her eyes met his again, as if asking permission and then she reached forwards with a trembling hand to take the letter from his fingers. Aunt Petunia began to read, her face a mask of an emotion that Harry could not read. He turned his stare away from her, as she had done for him, and took up his mug again, downing the rest of the warm tea. His eyes moved, unseeing, over the room, from the pictures waving at him on the walls, to the broomsticks neatly stacked by the door. All the while, he saw his Mother.

He heard the soft shuffle of paper and looked back around to find that Aunt Petunia had finished reading and placed the letter on the table between them. Her eyes were glassy, and overly bright, and Harry quickly averted his own, dropping to the Letter between them, almost like a connection, but not quite. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of yellowing sting and dry brown paper. His shoulders tensed and he looked away, pointedly. He didn't know if he much felt up to seeing what was inside the box yet, the letter had left him emotionally drained.

Harry distracted himself, momentarily, by watching his Aunt pick up her mug and drink the last of her tea, as she stared at nothing in particular, obviously thinking hard. She must have felt him watching her, because she brought her eyes back to him, and they scrutinised each other uncomfortably for a moment, before Harry looked away. He heard the sound of her replacing her empty mug on the table, and he could could imagine the way her nose flared when she expelled a heavy sigh, saw in his minds eye the way he imagined her lips had thinned out resolutely. They might not have liked each other, but they knew each other.

"Harry, I-" Petunia's voice had wavered alarmingly and Harry shook his head. He didn't need to hear what she had to say, he didn't need to hear excuses or explanations. He was content in knowing that his Aunt wasn't as indifferent to her sister, or her death, or her son, as she had made out for all them years.

"No one's ever told you about your Grandparents, have they?" she asked some time later, her voice quiet, but mercifully less tearful. "My parents, your Mother's parents, I mean." Harry looked up, surprised, at the odd expression on his Aunt's face. It was soft, almost pitying. He shook his head.

"No – no they haven't," he replied, his voice hoarse and throat inexplicably tight.

"Would you like to know about them?" Harry could feel his head moving up and down in a nod, as if of its own accord. He was awed, too surprised to attempt voicing just how much he would like that. She settled herself against the hard back of her chair, and laced her fingers around her empty mug on the table in front of her. Harry felt something spark inside of him as he watched the woman in front of him, something like affection, and yet not quite as strong. Once again, he truly appreciated that the blonde woman in front of him was his Mother's sister; his own blood.

Harry stood suddenly, gathering the empty mugs to him, desperate for something to do, to cease the emotion that begun to creep up on him. He couldn't quite place it, but it was intense and uncomfortable, and he did not think himself capable of dealing with anything like it yet. "Would you like another cup of tea?"

His Aunt regarded him for a moment, eyes slight narrowed, as if seeing him for the first time, or remembering something long forgotten to her. Then her lips thinned out into the faintest of smiles, so that Harry had to wonder if it was a smile at all. But a smile it was.

"Yes, I'd like that very much."

When Harry stood at his front door later that day and watched his Aunt get into her car and drive off, he knew it was the last time he would ever see her. Yet, Harry could not bring himself to regret it. She belonged to his past; to a life he had left behind when they had gone their separate ways four years ago, and to a grief Harry thought he had laid to rest a long time ago, but with the appearance of his Mother's letter, realised he had merely repressed.

Lily and James Potter, he realised, would never leave him, but now, with the help of his Aunt, they would finally rest in peace.


End file.
